Sunday, 25 November 2012

Just as with Olmert in 2006 Netanyahu was desperate to end the war. And just like Hezbollah then, Hamas was ready to take full advantage with a demand that the security zone of a kilometer on the Gazan side of the border be done away with.

This was ostensibly in order that Gazan famers could like Israelis farm right up to the fence with Israel.

In 2006 Olmert agreed to a weak implementation of UN resolution 1701 without assurances as to the disarming of Hezbollah or tough rules of engagement for UN troops when faced with Hezbollah smuggling of weapons. It was obvious that as with Resolution 1559 Hezbollah would just rearm and fortify its positions right down to the Israeli border, having learned all the lessons necessary to make the next war more difficult for Israel.

We saw last week that Hamas had learned the lessons of 2008 with the IAF being unable to prevent firing of missiles from Gaza. Unlike in 2008 the missiles came in large salvos of up to 12, at times overwhelming even the superbly effective Iron Dome defense.

Our enemies learn the lessons, but Israel does not seem to. The next war is based on how the last one ended, and this one ended disastrously. Hamas ended it not on its knees but firing hundreds of rockets at Israel daily.

And Hamas came out of this with major Israeli concessions, of extending their fishing rights up to 6 miles (useful for restocking missiles and other weapons). And Gazans are now able to approach the boreder fence making it all the easier to build kidnapping and bomb tunnels, to bring snipers and infiltrators closer to their targets. Israeli farmers will thus be pushed away from their lands on the border just as the rockets have forced thousands of Israelis to leave the south of Israel.

Two days ago the border fence was already attacked by a mob of Gazan 'civilians' testing the army and today an infiltrator from Gaza got over the border, the first such case in a long time. He came close to killing a girl on a moshav.

The army is going to now be on constant alert because our enemies are just too close for comfort. They are on a high after having deterred Israel in the Pillar of Cloud operation, and they gained important concessions from Israel.

Netanyahu might bask in the reflected glory of Iron Dome, but that unbelievable system is defensive. It will not bring peace and security to Israel, and could even be acting further to undermine it. Iron Dome gives Israel more reasons not to attack back and destroy the infrastructure of terror in Gaza, more reasons to delay dismantling Hamas. And the longer the delay, the more difficult it will be. One day Israel will have to do it because islamist Hamas is about throttling Israel preferably in concert with arab allies such as Egypt.

Netanyahu was tested, and rather than destroy Hamas once and for all whilst Egypt is weak and divided, listened to his pacifistic general Gantz just like he did Ashkenazi before him and the international community. Netanyahu has again been found wanting, a superb speaker yet a mouth without substance.

Solders killed a suspected Gaza terrorist early Monday after he broke into a Jewish home and stabbed a girl before fleeing.

The IDF discovered a hole in the nearby Gaza security fence, and footprints from the area matched the shoes of the intruder, who had escaped to the Moshav Sde Avraham's greenhouses after he tried to kill the girl.

Soldiers caught up with him and tried to arrest him, and then shot and killed him when he tried to escape.

The wounded girl is in fair condition. She was stabbed in her family’s home in Moshav Sde Avraham, originally named Yesodot HaDarom. It is a southern community adjacent to Gaza and was founded in 1982 by victims of the expulsion from the Yamit communities in Sinai that was part of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1979.

Friday, 23 November 2012

This was said of the leadership of
Britain's troops in World War I. General Haig's answer for defeat in
battle was to send ever larger numbers of soldiers to be mown down by
the German enemy's machine guns.

Jewish generals value life and have
always had to fight with their conscience, of how they can order men
into action when they know a portion will not return. This great
reluctance to take casualties led in the early years of Israel's
existence to many battles being abandoned after a few casualties were
taken. The famous paratroopers were unable to suppress the ever
increasing fedayeen attacks which increased along with Israel's
failures.Operation after operation ended in failure.

Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon together decided to put a stop
to this. Dayan ordered that no battle was to be abandoned before at
least 50% casualties were taken, and Sharon founded the famous unit
101. The enemy soon found that punishment could go both ways, that the sources of terror against Israel would inevitably be attacked and destroyed. Jordan from where most fedayeen attacks became fed up of having its army bases shot. Jordan stopped allowing arab
terrorists to use its territory to launch attacks against Israel.

Arabs are not stupid. On the rare
occasion Israel has really bared its teeth, arab terror has been
defeated. Hezbollah carried out frequent operations against Israel
before 2006. After 2006, despite the poor showing of Israel's army,
the pasting that was dealt out in Lebanon meant that there have been no Hezbollah attacks on Israel (It has on rare
occasions allowed other groups to mount missile attacks).

Israel is now back in 'spare the
soldiers' mode, which is very laudable as they are after all our
children and we dread any harm coming to them.

The only problem with this way of
thinking is that we are back in the post 1948 scenario, whereby
rather than spare lives, we are costing them. We are allowing
terrorists to dictate when and where outbreaks of violence happen and
when they end in a 'ceasefire'.

This is allowing the near constant disruption of
the life of the south of Israel.Sacrifing the gaza settlers and then Sderot has meant that Tel-Aviv is not now safe.

For years children have to reckon with being
targeted on the way to and from school, and families will frequently get the
6am wake up call by a rocket. By the time the siren has woken people
up, the rocket has hit. The terrorists maximise their chances of
killing someone because nobody is in a state to get to a shelter at that time.

So the home front is now the frontline
in the war with Hamas terrorists. Thankfully Iron Dome is there to
save major damage and injury, but the terror always remains. And the more defences Israel builds around itself, the less likely it will really find the will to stop the attacks. The rocket attacks must be added to Israel's
population having to normally live with terror. They live with terror not only in Judea and Samaria, but by having to be aware of their surroundings wherever they are in
Israel lest some arab try to knife, stone, shoot or bomb them.

This state of affairs can not go on, no country would allow that.
But it does and has for over 10 years now for inhabitants of Israel's
south.

With the latest operation there was a
glimmer of hope that Israel might finally extirpate the Iranian
financed and trained Hamas monster. There was hope that Olmert having made the mistake of conducting a half realised operation in Gaza, Netanyahu would learn the lessons and finish Hamas. I realised before any other of
the pundits that this was not going to happen, that Netanyahu's bombs and rockets were not doing the job. And this is because Hamas had learned from the last war to separate its men from the firing of rockets either by timers or by remote control. Rockets could be primed and rearmed from underground thus not exposing themselves to Israel's drone eyes in the sky. Bombing rocket launching sites might have looked impressive, but was often near totally useless.

Netanyahu is as always long on the
speeches, and short on the action. His nerve left him in the face of
international warnings led by chief appeaser Obama so he bombed
tunnels and rocket launchers, declared victory and has suffered utter
defeat. Again Netanyahu listened to the generals trained not in
winning wars but in saving our own soldiers and most importantly, enemy civilian lives.
Not for nothing did Netanyahu keep defence Minister Barak who has known only
defeats ever since he became prime minister. Barak was the architect of
pulling out of Lebanon which led to years of attacks culminating in
the Lebanon War of 2006. And Barak has along with Netanyahu allowed
Hamas to survive intact. Of course the army killed a couple of top
terrorists and knocked out terror infrastructure, but that will be
easily replaced.

If Israel did not want a ground
invasion, it was madness to send in the IAF in the way it did.

General Gantz is know saying that
Israel won a victory and that "The results will speak for
themselves”. In this at least he is correct. The 'ceasefire' has
until now been a mirage. Gazan terrorists have not stopped firing and will continue to fire at a level just short of Israel's red line of Tel-Aviv. The terror and disruption will go on. Nothing has been achieved.

Israel could have at least re-calibrated the 'red line' by warning that any firing of rockets would be a casus belli. But Israel not only did not do that, it has allowed yet another point of contact by doing away with the border 'no go' zone. This helped to protect against IED's and exploding tunnels being used against troops. Now the enemy can come that much closer to harm the IDF. Were Netanyahu and Barak that desperate to get a ceasefire? Israel has come out of this worse than it went in.

Not only did Israel beg for a ceasefire, it has now worsened its tactical stance on the borders. The parents of soldiers killed in future attacks will not forgive our desperate duo.

If Israel can no longer find the will
to send in the troops to destroy Hamas, then the only other option is
to reduce Gaza to the stone age from the air and using artillery in the next confrontation (which is surely not far away now). The institutions of education, the
electricity station, bridges and offices of state should be reduced
to rubble.

Israel should also declare that instead of blockading from
the sea, it will now go for the 'Turkish' option of a blockade from
the land.

As Turkey blockades peaceful Armenia,
so should Israel hermetically seal that terrorist statelet of Gaza
from where unending terror is delivered to Israel.

The rockets and mortars have come into Gaza in such numbers so as to make the blockade ineffective. Israel could
relax its sea blockade into a regime of inspection to make sure no
cargoes containing war munitions are imported into Gaza.

Egypt must then take
responsibility for Gaza, to feed it and supply its needs as both entities are after all led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Pundits keep warning that without
Israeli help Gaza will become a new Somalia. There isn't a chance of
that as Egypt and Hamas are effectively one. Egypt does not want
Somalia in its back yard, but even if that were the case, Somalia
might be easier to deal with than the centralised and state directed
terror of Hamas.

Without Israel Gaza will wither on the
vine but that is the decision Gazans took for themselves in voting
for Hamas and aiding it.

Monday, 19 November 2012

"Senior Israeli military and political leaders think that it is not realistic to expect that Operation Pillar of Defense could achieve more than it already has. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, along with the heads of the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), believe that the operation has accomplished most of its goals and that it should now be ended before Israel gets entangled in a situation that costs it heavily, both militarily and diplomatically. "

Israel is handing yet another victory to Hamas, and will find that the rockets will continue to pepper Israel. Hamas does not like what Israel has dished out in the last week, but it can more than tolerate it. Hamas knows that Israel has burst its bubble, that once the military is demobilised, it will not be able to simply restart the war.

Israel is a tiny country that can not afford to have a million citizens and a hundred thousand citizen soldiers away form work for extended periods of Hamas' choosing and diplomatically Israel is not able to defend repeated wars with Gaza to the world.

But Hamas knows that the south of Israel can not function if its citizens are to reckon with a daily rocket landing in the area. Hamas just wants the pot simmering away, ruining the quality of life of a large proportion of Israel's citizens for years on end. Hamas thinks strategically, knows that any damage Israel does will be rebuilt by europe, the US and the UN. Hamas by shutting down much of Israel for the last week is indeed the real victor.

Netanyahu along with his mastermind of previous Israeli defeats Barak has shown that he is not up to the job. In the face of world pressure he will not do what in his heart he knows needs to be done. The Hamas vipers nest must be uprooted but will not be done by him.

Simply hitting Hamas firing positions after rockets are fired is close to useless, as the rockets are fired by timer or remote control. Not for nothing has Israel only hit one rocket team this time round as opposed to 22 in Cast Lead. Hamas is emerging from this conflict almost intact, with its morale increased.

In the absence of a real operation to destroy Hams, we must learn the turkish lesson. Turkey has imposed a blockade on Armenia for over 20 years and nothing goes over the border to Armenia. It is time that Israel implemented that. Egypt must now take control and feed Gaza and supply it with its electricity.

If Gazans did not have all their needs met by Israel, then maybe they would have less time and energy to attack it. Without Israel's electricity the Kassam rocket workshops would not function.

It is time to cut the link with Gaza. Of course Israel will be lambasted by the international community, the US and of course Egypt but what other country supplies its enemies who are firing at it with all their needs?

I believe that it might be an idea to stop the blockade however. Israel could go over to a policy of inspecting vessels which enter Gaza. With this in place, there will be no possible arguments that Israel is starving Gaza.

There will of course be no peace, but why should Israel spend so much effort in keeping its enemies living decently whilst they try to destroy Israel.

In conflict Israel needs to follow a policy of reducing Gazan economic infrastructure so as to reduce the capacity to train terrorist engineers, and build weapons.

It is depressing that Netanyahu has shown himself to be unworthy of his heros, of Jabotinsky, of Beigin, of his father, unable to root out Gazan terror.

It has to happen sometime however, before our enemies can unite and spring a surprise attack like Yom Kippur. We can hope that one day a Sharon will arise to replace Israel's politicians and politicised generals. He will almost certainly be a religious jew who understands what the genocidal arabs are all about, and will not shrink from dealing with a populace that rather than look after themselves, try to kill jews on a daily basis.

The below article by Daniel Greenfield gives a clear explanation of the problems facing Israel and advocates, as I have long believed that Israel's 'political generals' reinforced by hordes of lawyers are not up to the job.Israel has lost its will to really win a war, to fight, to kill and to achieve its objectives. Nowadays the IDF has uppermost in its mind the survival of the enemy civilian population and works within this constraint hitting its enemies where it can. And of course Hamas utilises this to the full hiding itself and its weaponry in schools,hospitals and mosques knowing that the jews will never attack those institutions.Until the day comes where the IDF bombs the enemy where it finds it even when sheltering amongst civilians (a legitimate act under the laws of war as human shields lose their protected civilian status) the war will not be won, not even the battles. It was only in 1948 and 1967 that Israel could win wars, because it had its back to the wall, it knew if it did not destroy the enemy, the enemy would destroy it.Israel will maybe go into Gaza, kill some terrorists, do some damage, but leave the masterminds free to organise for another day.

Greenfield does not however draw the conclusions as far as is needed. It is not 'occupation' which is needed but the clearing of land used by the enemy to attack Israel from, so that terror operatives will not be able to return there. This can be achieved by a rolling artillery bombardment into areas infested with islamist terrorists. As usual Israel would warn the civilian population to flee the area so as not to be harmed.

Gaza is not a state and therefore San Remo 1920 still applies to that territory as part of the Jewish Homeland. The settlements would be reestablished on any vacant land freed from enemy terrorists and the area annexed to Israel.

The enemy Islamic Brotherhood population led by Hams a few miles may find itself living in the other half of the city of Rafah under the rule of Muslim Brotherhood Egypt.

A population which refuses to live at peace with its jewish neighbour after over 60 years must cease to be able to use Gaza as a launching pad for missiles against Israel.

Russia knew how to deal with Georgia when on one occasion in 2008 Georgia fired missiles into South Ossettia. Georgia was given no more chances. All georgians were removed from South Ossettia and the land annexed, not 'occupied'.

Israel's merciful way of dealing with its enemies has had the opposite of the intended effect.As with Georgia, were Israel's enemies to once receive harsh treatment they would think very carefully in future before sending even one missile against Israel.

Hezbollah even now is wary of attacking Israel after the lesson given it in 2006. Since then there have been no more kidnapping attempts or killing of Israelis by Hezbollah operatives (although Lebanese soldiers killed two israeli officers in an unprovoked attack).Israel must ensure that ALL its citizens are able to sleep easy in their beds at night (something Israelis in the south have not been able to do for 10 years). Letting Gaza know that even one missile would unleash a maelstrom would have precluded the last 10 years and thousands of missiles fired into Israel from Gaza.

Were the rules clear there would have been no need for Cast Lead or Pillar of Cloud wars because the place would be quiet.

Israel's acting mercifully to the genocidal Hamas regime that has just one intention, that of destroying Israel is in fact being cruel to both jews and arabs alike.

Israel is not ruthless like the Russians and gives chance after chance to its enemies to reform their ways. But they never do.

One day in the future when Israel has its back to the wall it will clear Gaza and retake Sinai. Only then will the south of Israel get peace.

The middle east respects only those willing to protect themselves and those that are not disappear. Christians are learning this hard lesson now and will soon have been transferred out of the region to europe and the USA. The Kurds know all about survival in this hard region, are grasping their opportunities whilst bleeding their enemies the Turks and Iranians.The Kurds taking full advantage of Syria's civil war are unsurprisingly going from strength to strength at the moment at almost no cost. Israel for the sake of peace must learn to love itself, and to deal measure for measure with its enemies. Israel should give its enemies their human rights but no more. If terrorists are hiding in amongst their families they must know that will not save them.The People of Israel never did act according to the principle of an 'eye for an eye', but the middle east acts only according to this. A country which is soft and always willing to forgive those who attempt to kill its citizens on a daily basis has no business being in the region. An army which values enemy populace hiding terrorists above its own soldiers will not fight effectively.Greenfield is right, this present war will solve nothing. After Pillar of Cloud ends Hamas will be soon back in business attempting to kill jews.

By Daniel Greenfield

Seven years ago the Israeli government decided to forcibly evict the 8000 Jewish residents of Gaza and withdraw all bases and forces from the area. The experts, some with the government and some with the media, assured everyone that it would be for the best and that withdrawal would actually improve the security situation in the country.

It was put about that resources and lives were being wasted protecting Israelis living in Gaza, while those Israelis insisted that their presence in Gaza was protecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The experts laughed at them. Now the experts are keeping an ear open for air raid sirens because as it turned out, those farmers and teachers, those men and women growing lettuce in greenhouses and building homes on hilltops, from which rockets are being launched, were the ones protecting Tel Aviv.

"They are now being asked to relinquish these accomplishments for the greater good," the government press release said of their houses and farms, of their synagogues and greenhouses. And the greater good was served. The greenhouses were turned into Hamas training camps and the synagogues were burnt to the ground. Rockets fly into the air from the ruins of broken houses.

No longer will your sons have to die in Gaza, the experts said. A month later rockets were falling on Sderot. A year later Gilad Shalit had been kidnapped and Israeli soldiers were back again, dying in a Gaza that was now run by Hamas.

Among the bundle of promises from the Sharon government, was that the Gaza withdrawal was part of an oral agreement with the United States limiting further withdrawals and concessions. That agreement lasted for another few years until Obama took office and no one in his administration could ever remember such an agreement or accept its validity.

"The moment of truth has arrived," Netanyahu said, on resigning from the Sharon government. "At the moment of truth, a man - especially a leader - must ask himself: 'What are you doing, what do you stand for, what are you fighting for?'"

These moments of truth come fast and furious in Israel, but hardly anyone waits around for an answer. Not even Netanyahu, who knows better.

Hamas' objectives have always been straightforward. Its commanders and suicide bombers, its militia members, bomb experts, smugglers, launchers and embezzlers know what they are fighting for.

"Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave," the Hamas charter says. "Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims." It has the simplicity that you would expect from the Muslim Brotherhood, a fascist organization that drew equal inspiration from the Koran and Nazism.

What however is Israel fighting for? Since Oslo, the slogan of Israeli moderate conservatives has been "Peace with Security" even though it was quite clear that you could pursue peace and have neither peace nor security, or you could pursue security and have peace. Their slogan was muddled and their policies even more so.

Israel may have superior firepower, but like most Western countries, its policymakers are too muddled to be able to apply that firepower in a useful way. The limited scale warfare that has been adopted by America, including drone assassinations and extensive security measures, came out of Israel's futile efforts to find a more humanitarian style of warfare that would limit civilian and military casualties. But all that these measures really did was make life with terror more manageable.

Withdrawals and a variety of defensive measures such as Iron Dome made it seem like Israel could maintain the status quo. Peace with Security meant no peace and no security, but enough of the illusion of both that it would seem as if the slogan had been fulfilled. Suicide bombings dropped and the terrorists were forced to resort to rocket attacks and drive-by shootings with much lower casualty rates. Rates so low that those who didn't live in Sderot or Samaria could ignore them.

Instead of ending the threat, Israeli conservatives had found a way to live with the pain of terrorism while turning their focus to economic reforms. The left, with its emphasis on finding a permanent solution through appeasement and withdrawals, was discredited and collapsed. But the problem had not gone away.

While Israel slept, the makeup of the region changed. Hamas had formerly been strongly backed by Syria and Iran, with some support from more distant Islamist Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Egypt and Jordan were both wary of Hamas because their governments were concerned about being overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Arab Spring put Islamists into power in Egypt. Suddenly the Muslim Brotherhood was running things on both sides of the Rafah Crossing. Hamas switched its allegiance from the shaky Shiite axis of Iran, Syria and Iraq over to the rising Sunni Islamist axis of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. The Islamist terrorist group was no longer an isolated arm of Iranian foreign policy, it could count on the backing of Turkey, Qatar and Egypt.

Not long after Qatar's leader paid a visit to Hamas, this latest war began. Like so many conflicts with terrorist groups, it isn't about any specific domestic objective. The objectives are regional and now international. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood regime is looking shaky and the Gaza lifeline has come at a perfect time, allowing Morsi to turn the attention of Egyptians away from the shaky economy and some dubious proposals, including early store closings, over to familiar territory denouncing Israel.

Under Iran or Egypt, Hamas is not fighting for Palestinian nationalism, which was already a fiction manufactured by Soviet propagandists looking up to prop up a Greater Syria, but to support the aims of Iranian and Egyptian domestic policy. And suddenly those aims were uncomfortably close.

Terrorist groups find sponsors the way that Renaissance artists found patrons, they show off their skills and wait for someone to come calling with money and guns.

Terrorist militias serve an ideology, but function as a business. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah or any other of the many groups blanketing the region, need money and weapons to be viable. They need state sponsors and the states that sponsor them want something in return. Terrorist groups find sponsors the way that Renaissance artists found patrons, they show off their skills and wait for someone to come calling with money and guns. And then they perform for their patrons.

Israel's terrorist problem is unsolvable through any form of peace negotiations because there will always be sponsors. A terrorist group may sign a peace agreement, but then it quickly gets on the phone to its sponsors to assure them that it will go on committing acts of terror. Its militias are spun off into "separatist" or "splinter" groups that go on doing what they did before. And the group then asks its new friend American and Israeli friends for guns and money to fight these extremists. That way the terrorist groups get twice the money for terrorism and a farce of counter-terrorism.

Even if a terrorist leader is sincere, his movement is nothing but an umbrella group for terrorist militias. If the umbrella group stops funneling money from state sponsors to local militias, the militias go into business for themselves. And there is such a demand by sponsors for more and more "extreme" militias, that even the existing terrorist groups find themselves having to compete with newer and more violently Islamist militias.

Peace is useless and hopeless under these conditions. Fatah claimed that it could not control Hamas. Hamas claims it cannot control the men shooting rockets out of Gaza. The people shooting rockets out of Gaza will claim that they cannot control their fingers on the trigger. It's plausible deniability all the way down when it's convenient, but the real control is in the hands of regional regimes who feed coins into the slot and get out terrorism.

So what then is Israel fighting for? Peace with security. Which means slapping down Hamas hard enough that it will have to wait another 3-4 years before trying the same thing again, this time with bigger and better rockets. That was the policy six years ago and it's the policy today.

Israel will bomb Hamas targets, kill some of its senior leaders and destroy some of its weapons stockpiles. Its soldiers will enter Gaza, arrest some more senior leaders, walk into traps that will kill some of its best and brightest, and then withdraw again while Hamas celebrates its victory in the Battle of XX or YY where five or six Israeli soldiers were killed, along with ten or fifteen Hamas terrorists. And then the Battle of XX will become the Massacre of XX and lead to a documentary that will be doing an extended tour of American and Canadian campuses during the next Israeli Apartheid Week.

This is the status quo and it cannot be maintained indefinitely. The air raid sirens going off in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem warn that the war is heading into unsustainable territory. As Iran goes nuclear, Hizbullah is trying to become another Iran and Hamas is trying to become another Hizbullah. It is not a nuisance that can be ignored. Israel has no answer to the growing threat except to try and contain it through the same old methods that have now put Jerusalem and Tel Aviv into the line of fire.

Since 1992, Israel has been retreating and those retreats have replaced secure borders with borders of terror. Rather than reversing those withdrawals, the right has been satisfied with trying to stabilize them. But that has only created safe spaces for terror while setting the stage for the next round of retreats by the left which will create even broader territories of terror. These territories are staging areas for the next invasion, which will come not from Hamas, but a Muslim Brotherhood Egypt and an Islamist Turkey, once Israel has been sufficiently softened up.

The only way to end the threat of Hamas in Gaza is by retaking Gaza, but no such policy is on the table. Like America, Israel responds to terrorism not with the aim of achieving decisive victories, but with a policy of intimidating the terrorists into scaling down their attacks. This is a political policy of political generals and leads to terror becoming a permanent institution.

Israel has tried negotiating its way out of the terrorist trap. It has not tried fighting its way out. Israel has tried to escape the occupation, but in a region where you are either the occupier or the occupied, it may have no choice.

Any moment of truth must begin and end with a realistic assessment of the realities that you face. Israel faces a proxy war by its neighbors and like most proxy wars, it is the opening round to a true war ending in true occupation and genocide.

Its neighbors know what they are fighting for. They are fighting Israel for the same reason that Shiites fight Sunnis and that Sunnis persecute Christians. They are fighting Israel because "by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population" it is different and must be crushed for the national and religious aims of any proper Islamist country.

But what is Israel fighting for? Like so many modern countries it is fighting so as not to fight. It is fighting for peace. It is fighting to escape from fighting. And so like many modern countries it cannot bring itself to fight hard enough to break the cycle. Instead it fights just hard enough to defer the fight by another few years and the cycle continues.

Israel can retake Gaza once. Or it can retake Gaza every few years. It can have soldiers patrol Gaza or it can have rockets falling on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The options are as unfortunate as they are clear. The only hope for peace lies in driving out the terrorist militias who have turned Gaza and the West Bank into their own Somalia and Afghanistan and reclaiming the territory. Because after this fight is through, the next generation of rockets will go on being built and smuggled. And they will not fall in empty fields.

There can be farms and greenhouses on the hilltops of Gaza. Or there can be rockets.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

The below story is not the usual demonised view of a settler, but then I didn't read
this on the BBC website, the Guardian or NYT. My thanks to Muqata who is live blogging this
war. God speed to Israel, may it extirpate the Hamas menace without
sacrificing its soldiers in acts to save the enemy populace. In
wartime a nation must first protect its own citizens, including its
soldiers. Jewish soldiers must not be expected to sacrifice themselves
to save enemy civilians in Gaza who are brought up to hate jews with
their mother's milk.

Surreal story from Eli Birnbaum in Tekoa:

Erev Shabbat in Tekoa (like most places) is a contradiction of tension
and relief. This time the arrival of Shabbat was accompanied by warning
sirens for a missile attack. Surprise and unbelief “Missiles here in the
Judean desert?” Before we can really grasp what was happening, there
came the resounding boom of an explosion echoing in the hills reflecting
the shock in our faces. The security van careens through the streets
calling people to find shelter. Within minutes another siren warning.
This time prayers are halted . “Quickly under the shul,” someone
commands. Within the confusion we grab our children and grandchildren in
our arms and climb down to the open area under the synagogue which
affords more protection. We all move quickly in the darkening evening
finding space on the floor . I hold one of my grandchildren talking to
him softly . He thinks it is a great game. We begin to sing and wait for
the next boom.

It was at that moment that my son Pinny’s cell phone rings. As a member
of a search and rescue team it is not uncommon for him to get calls even
on Shabbat. But this call was different “Shabbat Shalom” . It is a
familiar voice with a very distinct accent. “ Pinny, its Muhammad, what
do I do? What’s happening? I heard your sirens”. There is real panic in
his voice.

At first this may not appear to be an abnormal situation, but Muhammad
is an acquaintance/friend who happens to live in the Arab village of
Tuqua which the army will only enter in large numbers. Pinny quietly
explains that we were being rocketed from Gaza and the best thing he
could do is to remain in doors and stay away from windows. Muhammad
thanks Pinny profusely apologizes for calling on Shabbat “ Shabbat
Shalom Pinny – B’Emet todah!”. So this Friday night , a “Palestinian
Arab” called a “Jewish Settler” for help regarding a rocket attack from
Gaza – Surreal!

Friday, 16 November 2012

Overnight the Israeli press trumpets the bombing of 250 installations in Gaza, most notably missile launching sites. This is another example of a bloated Israeli military carrying out the same failed policies that have not stopped the rocket attacks in the last ten years.

Israel's answer to Hamas rockets is just more of the same. Is not a devastating attack to crush Hamas once and for all but of bombing empty installations and rocket launchers. Launchers can be replaced in minutes after having been blasted by hugely expensive smart missiles.

Israel must learn to be cruel. Gaza must be bombed out of a wish to hurt and kill Israelis. Gaza's electricity station should be put out of action.Gaza has a border with Egypt, and it is through that border that food and medicine should be imported. Needless to say, Israel's hospitals should become out of bounds for its enemies.

An answer to Hamas is maybe also to return to the events of 1947. From 30th November 1947 after the UN Partition Resolution arabs in Israel in league with the British and arab states conducted a war to kill off any possibility of jews forming a state. The task of Palestinian arabs was to shoot up the roads and jewish towns and villages, to prevent jewish forces moving to protect kibbutzim and towns under attack. Arabs in Israel were tasked to create for the invading arab armies an easy entrance into the country with rest and staging areas. The plan failed because hostile arab villages were emptied and destroyed largely as a result of propaganda about the mythical massacre of Deir Yassin. Untrue it was but it was of enormous help in clearing vital strategic aresas of the enemy.
Our enemies call this 'ethnic cleansing' but Israel's intention was not to expel its arabs but to defend itself from attack and another extermination just 3 years after the Holocaust. Those arab villages and towns which took no part in hostilities against jews such as Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem remained safe and are still there today. Those who had participated in attacks on jews left, fearing the massacres so traditional in the middle east and that are now being perpetrated in Syria.

Gaza is an entity resolute in attacking Israel and working for its destruction and we see that there can be no peace with this islamist state which has only ever had one goal, to destroy Israel.

Gaza must be cleared of enemy military concentrations preferably in a rolling movement using artillery from north to south forcing the enemy to move away from Israel's present borders, until the enemy desire to attack and kill Israelis is crushed. Once the land is cleared Israeli settlements must be built there again with the territory annexed to Israel. Our enemies must know that aggression against Israel will have a permanent response.

Either the aggression will stop at any point in time at which the Israeli forces will stop their own advance forwards, or our enemies will find themselves further south in the Sinai. This can be the only effective response to islamists in Gaza that won't put many israeli soldiers' lives at risk in a costly ground war.

Until the day comes when Israel is prepared to move its enemies further away from its borders there will be no peace. As we see now, Gush Katif protected Israel from attack. With the settlements gone, Israel has had years of sustained rocket fire into its towns and cities.

Simply bombing Hamas tunnels, installations, bunkers and rocket launchers will solve nothing. Wasting Israel's resources using hi tech against arabs who can make missiles cheaply will mean that the problem of massed Gazan rockets attacks on Israel will keep recurring.

Israel must change the paradigm. Hamas must be extirpated from Gaza either by way of a ground offensive, or preferably by a rolling artillery bombardment..

Arab Israeli students holding their 'Moment of Silence' at Haifa University in memory of slain Hamas terrorist

Jews have never come to terms over the centuries with the hatred shown to us by the mass of christians and muslims. The Jewish People has done its utmost to have the nations love us albeit the setting up a model state, a democratic state whereby all its citizens have true freedoms. Many citizens and guests abuse these privileges.

Arabs in Israel have everything they could wish for, freedom of speech, of assembly, to vote, to have the best healthcare in the world (something extended even yesterday to over dozen gazans who were allowed into Israel to be treated), the right to be treated equally and without discrimination before the law, their right to security. There is nowhere better in the middle east to be an arab.

Yet in the best of times jews in Israel are not afforded their rights to peace and security. Every month there are hundreds of terror acts against jews by arabs from small scale puncturing of tyres and burning of cars and stonings to the large scale theft and destruction of property. Arabs who shout about the sanctity of olive trees uproot jewish owned olive groves. Forests in Israel suffer from mass arson attacks whenever the weather gets warm. And of course there are the knifings, the stabbings and gruesome murders of jews that happen or are attempted almost daily.

There is little chance that Israel will finally put a stop to rocket attacks - Hamas will be deterred for a year or two at most

Even in time of war Israel's arab population is safe and sound. No Israeli has the right to go round to his arab neighbour and abuse him or go in the night and kick him out. This is good as the innocent citizen must be protected without discrimination. But Israel has many loyal arab citizens, muslim and christian who need supporting not just by way of rights, but of sanctions against those arabs who intimidate them and are traitors to the state. Yesterday in Haifa university a group of arab students held a public demonstration on university grounds against the killing of Hamas terrorist Ahmed Jabari responsible for the deaths of 600 Israelis. Israel's universities regularly see provocations from some of its arab students who bite the hand which nourishes them. Not the traitorous arabs but the jewish counter demonstration was threatened by campus security:

Ronit Moskowitz, a student at the University
of Haifa, told Globes that one of the demonstrators told her that the
silent 20-minute vigil was “in memory of our chief of staff.”

Moskowitz said that Jewish students responded
to the vigil by singing “Hatikva,” the Israeli national anthem. The
original demonstration dispersed, and while the Jewish students were
still singing “Hatikva,” campus security arrived to inform the Jewish
students that they were not allowed to demonstrate on campus and
threatened to bring them to a disciplinary board

“They stood there for 20 minutes and nobody approached them. They have the right and we don’t?” Moskowitz asked.

What other country would allow this in a time of war? In England 'enemy aliens' were interned throughout WWI, and nazi sympathisers were interned throughout the Second World War along with innocent jewish refugees who had fled the nazi horrors. The Amadeus string quartet was formed whilst interned in a British camp. Confirmed traitors who worked for the nazis even in a propaganda capacity were executed.
In the USA the whole japanese ethnic population was interned.

But Israel extends full rights to arabs such as anti-semite and islamist agitator Raed Salah who calls for the destruction of his country. These people call from within Israel to boycott the country whilst enjoying all its protections and benefits. One such despicable arab citizen who immigrated to Israel from Egypt is hypocrite Omar Bargouti who onsorts with Israel's worst enemies and works tirelessly to bring about the boycotting of Israel, all whilst studying for a Phd at Tel Aviv University!

Why does Israel do nothing? Indeed why does it allow hundreds of foreign activists to march up and down Judea and Samaria making the lives of jews living there and of the army a misery? Why does it tolerate adults inciting their children to goad and attack its soldiers? This incitement is child abuse and social workers should be sent in to take such abused children into safety. Parents who do this to their children are not fit for this role.

Why does Israel allow reporters such as British propagandist Jonathan Cook to make a good living out of writing calumnies against Israel whilst residing comfortably in Jaffa?

Israel has not learned that a democracy needs protecting, that every democracy under threat has shown itself to be totally merciless to its enemies. Britain when it was bombed by the nazis conducted thousand bomber raids against german cities in order to kill civilians and thus undermine german will to continue the war. Only a few weeks ago France again warned that it would use its nuclear weapons, this time if Syria used chemical or biological weapons. The first time was in 2005 when Chirac threatened to annihilate any state that sent terrorists against it.

But Israel believes that to prove itself as a democracy it must allow its worst enemies, parasites such as Cook and Barghouti to make their livings and use Israel's services and benefits from within Israel's borders. Those parasites are allowed to write their lies and take naive visitors to Israel on 'tours' to indoctrinate them against the tiny state of Israel, under constant attack and once again having to fight to keep alive.

Democracy needs defending, not just by protecting minorities and individual freedoms which is very laudable and something I would always defend, but of excluding those who despise democracy, who hate the very freedoms that Israel extends to all, who serve its enemies by acting for those who wage war against it.

Israel must learns that democracies need to be defended not only against those who fire rockets at it, but those who act as a parasitical fifth column.

Israel needs to love itself more than its enemies, to forget about being understanding and indulgent to its enemies, to beg for peace and hope the world will love it. A country needs to be first respected and feared by its enemies before it can afford the luxury of love.

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Whilst jewish children are taught music and dance, islamists have only one thing on their mind

Netanyahu fooled us all. As he was applying balm and displaying indifference in the face of over a hundred Hamas missiles hitting Israel, he was preparing a painful attack on the islamist terrorists who have made living in parts of the south of Israel a nightmare for nigh on 10 years.

And Netanyahu got the number one Hamas terrorist, so congratulations again. But one dead terrorist even Jabari does not win a war.

And Obama hasn't yet put the boot into Israel for daring to attack arabs. Is this a quid pro quo for not attacking Iran (If so it is a very poor bargain, as no matter how difficult Hamas makes life for Israelis, it is unlike Iran not an existential threat to Israel unless and until the islamist foes of Egypt, Gaza and Hezbollah with the possible of a newly islamist Syria and Jordan can synchronise their attacks - will the present jordanian regime survive or will it fall prey to an islamist fate in the coming year or two?

So apart from the good news, of the magnificent show given yet again by the IAF that took out most of the Iranian medium range Fajr missiles that could hit Tel-Aviv and thus cripple Israel's economy and the proving of the Iron Dome, there is still no evidence that Israel's leadership has understood the dynamics of the enemies it faces.

The next generation of Jihad

Israel has played a clever game, hoodwinking its enemy and left footing him yet again, but Israel is still playing to the rules written for it. Israel is allowed to fight back after receiving thousands of rockets, but only for so long, and to only do so much damage. Now if we were dealing with an enemy which cared about its people's suffering then this might work. But Hamas and the other assorted islamists running Gaza don't care a hoot about their people. Their only interest is in working towards their long term goal of destroying Israel and establishing the caliphate stretching from Spain to India (in the first instance).

Israel is facing a foe that is more similar to the nazis than to France or Great Britain. British and French rulers might have attacked each other for centuries, but they were not trying to destroy or even to kill but rather to possess. The islamists wish to possess also but then to destroy the culture of their enemies along with their christian and jewish religions. Atheists would soon find that they had a choice between being put to the sword or islam.

As the islamists work according to nazi rules of conquering and destroying without mercy, of not acknowledging defeat until utterly routed, Israel must change its 'Weltanschaung' from that of liberal protectors of the human rights of their islamist enemies to that of Poland or Czechoslovakia after the Second World War.

The unlamented useful idiot Rachel Corrie burning a US flag in Gaza in the cause of the Islamic Caliphate

Silesian and Sudetan Germans were sent over the border into Germany after having played the fifth column preparing the way for the nazi invasion. Hamas run Gaza is a dagger pointed at Tel-Aviv just as it was in 1948. Gaza has devoted itself for nearly the whole of Israel's short history to being the launching pad for attacks against Israel, whether it was from the merciless Fedayeen of the 1950's or of Arafat's murderers of the PLO in the 1960's.

The only solution is to ship Gazans over the border to Egypt. Gazans are Egyptians in all but name and whenever they are allowed egyptian citizenship grab it with both hands.

The world will scream blue murder, but that always happens when Israel is involved. Sooner or later Israel will learn that Gaza is a running sore which will never allow Israel any but the briefest of lulls in the attrition against it.

Her daddy was killed with 2 others by a Hamas rocket today in Kiryat Malachi

Egypt which has just withdrawn its ambassador from Israel in protest at Israel's retaliation for the latest waves of rockets against it is another enemy which Israel is sooner or later going to have to remove from the Sinai. As the latest salvo of rockets from the Sinai desert show, Egypt has no interest in stopping missiles being fired at Israel from its territory. Egyptian President Morsy who uttered 'amen' to his local imam's beseeching of Allah to destroy Israel, this Morsy who only a month before his election was calling for Jihad, and of sacrificing one's life without needing to spell out just against who (the head of the Muslim Brotherhood the organisation he himself led until recently spelt it out clearly that muslims would soon be marching on Jerusalem) will go to war with Israel just as soon as he can. Thankfully the Egyptian economy is at present a shambles, but that should not be relied on. Saudi Arabia and other arab states have in the past been only too willing to finance a war with Israel.

Mona Lisa reminds us that some arabs love Israel and defend it from the islamists and 'palestinian' terrorists

Israel must learn once and for all that its only security will come not from pieces of paper that its arab enemies will tear up at the drop of a hat, but from land. Israel is thankfully blessed with defensible borders, but only if Israel advances towards them.

Israel must drive out its enemies when they make war against it, from Gaza and from the Sinai and from Judea and Samaria if arabs there refuse to live at peace with Israel.

In the next conflict Israel must re-take the Gidi and Mitla passes in the Sinai, re-take its biblical borders up to the Litani river and annexe Judea and Samaria. In the next thirty years Israel will have more than enough people to fill those borders and thus make the land safe.

Enough of Israeli soldiers dying because their enemies were given back land they had attacked Israel from. Not for nothing did the People of Israel thousands of years ago stake out secure borders along the natural borders of high points and rivers surrounding Israel. The rules have not changed despite modern armaments. Secure borders must be kept with our enemies being only granted peace in exchange for peace.

In the middle east the man who gives away land, who makes gesture for peace is recognised as weak, as appeasing a more worthy power.

Poor 'blaspheming' pakistani christian Rimsha Masih reminds us that islamist grievances can not be met other than by counterforce

Israel is not weak. It must make no more concessions, no more gestures, give away no more land. Those who attack Israel must know that they stand to lose their lives and their land.

This is called deterrence, something which this latest campaign will most likely only grant for a year or two.One day Israel will learn the lesson of this cycle not so much of violence but of appeasment.

Israel's appeasing its enemies of begging for peace negotiations, of offering land, of propping up its enemies economies, of feeding its enemies, of allowing its enemies to use its hospitals leads only to the next round of hostilities.

Israel will most likely only attain deterrence when it has its back to the wall as in 1948, when in order to survive it is forced to treat its merciless enemies measure for measure. That time is coming.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

I did wonder when I wrote this article last week when Egypt's islamists would remember all that artwork lying around just ready for the iconoclast's hammer. I didn't have long to wait as not happy with the 'nose job' already inflicted on the Sphinx, one Egyptian jihadi wants to finish the work begun by one of his forbears. But Egypt is not Afghanistan, there is so much of the stuff lying around. What better job creation scheme for the millions of Cairo's unemployed who can begin work on this horrendous piece of idolatry:

An Egyptian jihad leader, with self-professed links to the Taliban, called for the “destruction of the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramids in Egypt,” drawing ties between the Egyptian relics and Buddha statues, local media reported this week.

Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Islamist leader twice-sentenced under former President Hosni Mubarak for advocating violence, called on Muslims to remove such “idols.”

“All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues,” he said on Saturday during a television interview on an Egyptian private channel, widely watched by Egyptian and Arab audiences.

“God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols,” he added. “When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”

His comments came a day after thousands of ultraconservative Islamists gathered in Tahrir Square to call for the strict application of Sharia law in the new constitution.

But in retaliation to Gohary’s remarks, the vice president of Tunisia’s Ennahda party, Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro, called the live program and told Gohary that famous historic military commander Amr ibn al-Aas did not destroy statues when he conquered Egypt.

“So who are you to do it?” he wondered. “The Prophet destroyed the idols because people worshiped them, but the Sphinx and the Pyramids are not worshiped.”

Sunday, 11 November 2012

It is no coincidence that the re-election of Obama has seen a rise in attacks by Hamas and its cohorts on the Israeli south. So far in the last 24 hours getting on for a hundred assorted missiles have been fired at Israel and there are a number of injured. Israel has warned its citizens to be no more than 15 seconds away from a bomb shelter. Civilian life in southern Israel has come to a halt. And this is exactly what the terrorists want.

In the 1930's arabs launched waves or terror attacks on jews throughout Mandatory Palestine and the response was for the Haganah to defend its villages and roads as best it could. The initiative was however always with the attackers and the toll in jewish lives grew. It was only when the feeling grew that the Yishuv was being strangled, and British authorities themselves came under attack from those arabs such as Haj Amin El Husseini that something was done. British army officers had encouraged the arabs in their attacks on jews as far back as the 1920 and 1921 attacks on the jews of Jerusalem.

Only with the setting up of the Palmah, its unorthodox leader Yitzchak Sadeh and a similarly unorthodox Brit, that rarerst of officers who was in sympathy with the jews did things change. Wingate's ideas involved taking the war to the enemy. He did not believe in waiting in a trench or a guardpost but lying in wait for the arab bands at the entrances to their villages. When the bands came out at night to terrorize the kibbutzim they would be shot up as they left their village.
And the British army faced with arab terror warned villages that those which shielded arab bands of murderers would be obliterated. When the warnings were not taken, the villages were blown up. The methods were cruel but effective. The British crushed the arab revolt so much that when the arabs tried their terror again in 1947-8 the Yishuv managed to suppress the terror within 6 months even in the face of British obstruction, of arms confiscations and arrests of Haganah members.

That was 1948. The Haganah had learned the lessons of 1936, and had gone over to the offensive as soon as was possible when the British would evacuate an area prior to leaving the country (in disarray) in May 1948.

Nowadays the aim is not to clear the way for the invasion of other arab armies but have a constant low level attrition against Israel, to stifle its economic and civil life. The intention is to attack Israel, cause mayhem for a few days and then
before any Israeli response can get going, have arab allies such as Egypt call a
ceasefire to which Hamas will 'reluctantly' agree.

This is intended to be an almost cost free
exercise in attrition against the State of Israel. A near constant
disruption of life for over a million israelis for which a few
expendable jihadists will be gladly sacrificed. It is no sacrifice, except for
paralysed Israel. Israel is like a rabbit caught in the headlights
unable to respond to the almost daily attacks against it apart from
vague threats that a larger operation might have to be undertaken
against Hamas at some future date.

Israel as seen above has been here before but the old lessons are well and truly
forgotten. Moshe Dayan knew them and so did Ariel Sharon, but Barak does
not understand them and neither it seems does Netanyahu. Whilst Obama
was uncertain in the last year of his re-election Israel might have
acted with relative impunity against Gaza for its missile attacks on
Israel. Israel might even have got away with an attack to divest Iran of
its nuclear weapons program. That window has now passed and Israel must
reckon with an enemy in the White House, of a US administration that
when it can not prevent Israel from retaliating against those who attack
it will seek to inflict pain on Israel.

Rather than concentrate on the real enemies of peace, of palestinian arab intransigance, of arabs not agreeing to sit down and talk to Israel at the negotiating table, Obama will continue in the same vein of painting Israel as the agressor, of appeasing the islamist extremists (whose very existance he denies, only admitting to a 'defeated' al qaida) and of pointing to Israel's settlements in Judea and Samaria and of the conflict with a spurious palestinian arab people as being the source of all middle east problems. This has always been a ludicrous argument, now more than ever, but it is always repeated as a mantra in various mutant forms.

Israel might have been able to respond before Obama was re-elected, but now everything is different.
The time for smashing Hamas and its capabilities has passed. In the next four years the might of the USA will be devoted to preventing Israel from responding properly either
to Iranian threats to annihilate Israel or of Israel's enemies attacks from Gaza,
Lebanon and elsewhere in the middle east. Israel has an enemy in the
White House who will make sure that Israeli attempts to defend itself
will be frustrated.

The most that will be allowed is small 'proportionate' responses whereby the odd low level terror operative (usually identified as a 'civilian') is killed whilst launching a missile. The solution to Gazan terror, of uprooting its terror infrastructure root and branch is now off the cards. Hence the massive upsurge lately in attacks on Israel.

Olmert had the chance in 2008 during the 'Cast Lead' war and fluffed it, as he did in 2006 in Lebanon when Israeli soldiers were attacked and kidnapped. Netanyahu has had years to deal with Iran and Gaza himself but has not done so. For the next 4 years even were there a wish to do so, Israel is going to be unable to deal with Iran thus forcing it to rely on sanctions and covert operations to delay their nuclear program.

Similarly Israel has another four years in which it will suffer the consequences of Netanyahu's inaction in the face of nearly constants islamist attacks from Gaza's territory. Obama will not allow the needed IDF invasion to resolve the problem.

One day Israelis will understand that in the face of an implaccable foe who will only be satisfied when the caliphate is established over the whole of Israel and as far as Spain (in the first instance), the only method to defeat his intentions is to utterly uproot Israel's enemies from Gaza.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

It's interesting that a maronite priest can take time out from the woes of christians persecuted, beaten and killed throughout the muslim world to spread hatred of jews using the notorious tsarist forgery the Protocols of the Elder of Zion and the deicide myth.
Speaking in arabic on Hezbolla TV the priest opens up his heart to the Hezbollah killers who are presently firing hundreds of missiles nightly into sunni villages just over the border in Syria, and says what he really feels about jews.
There's none of the crocodile tears for 'suffering' palestinian arabs and 'occupation' and the suchlike we often hear from the mealy mouthed franciscans and Vatican media.
Here we get just the raw expression of the old hatred for the Jewish People from a christian priest spreading the old calumnies to islamic murderers.
If this priest thinks that ingratiating his community with Hezbollah will convince them not to turn their guns on his community he's living in a fool's paradise.
The turn of Lebanon is coming and no amount of peddling of the old lies against jews will spare his own community from the coming islamic storm being waged next door.

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

The worst has happened and now it's time to take stock. Obama remains president knows the ropes and will be able to work faster and harder to achieve policies that are important to him. He also will not need to tailor policies in his last year to getting re-elected.

Obama has no love for Israel or its current leader Netanyahu who will most likely also be re-elected. The question is whether Obama will try again to hammer Israel over its citizens living in the Jewish Ancestral Homelands of Judea and Samaria. Hopefully Obama is chastened by events last time round, and will have little enthusiasm to go head to head with Israel when it is palestinian arabs who have been the stumbling block to moving peace forwards.
Palestinian arabs are the ones who have refused to sit down at the table with Israel who constantly provoke and attack jews.
But the problem is not whether and when to negotiate but the fact that arabs keep telling Israel they will sooner or later destroy it. Why else does Abbas and his crew stick rigidly to the 'right of return', that arabs and their descendants can move back to towns in Israel where they might have come from. Israel is supposed to forget that 5 arab armies and arabs living in Israel tried to strangle Israel at birth, to forget that the moment it left Gaza and Lebanon they attacked Israel. In the case of Gaza the rocket attacks are unceasing.

Palestinian arabs have little wish to establish their own state albeit Farouk Kadummi the PLO former 'foreign minister' who only this last week said that he favoured a confederation with Jordan.So did another PLO central committee member:

Zaki also discussed the idea of "Palestine" federating with Jordan, which PLO official Farouk Kaddumi recently suggested. Zaki said that this is of course a possible option - but now is not the time to talk about it. Apparently, the PLO knows quite well that independence was never its goal - destroying Israel has been, and the entire facade of a "two-state solution" is simply another stage in that goal. But if the PalArab leaders publicly acknowledge that they really are indistinguishable from Jordan, the UN member states might wonder why they really want their own state.

So will Obama go full steam ahead to bully Israel into allowing the establishment of another terror state for a non-existant people, some millions of arabs west of the Jordan whose identity is based upon the destruction of Israel?

Obama may very well move forwards with this, hanging the possibility of the USA allowing the UNSC to pass damaging resolutions against Israel. He could downgrade military links with Israel and generally work to destroy Israel's links with the USA. Obama doesn't have a totally free hand as Congress is still very supportive of Israel. But a chill will soon enter the air.

Apart from Obama's obsession with Israel he will need to take time out on a regular basis to deal with Iran whose nuclear program threatens to set off an avalanche of proliferation, something that Obama is committed to prevent. And then there is China the bully of South East Asia. That is going to take up increasing amounts of time. And lastly there is that burgeoning deficit. $16 trillions is no mean sum and might soon lead to a collapse in the dollar if nothing is done.

Israel is a tiny country but it has weathered many storms in its recent history. The second Obama period was presaged by the omen of Hurricane Sandy and Netanyahu will indeed need to batten down the hatches and be prepared to take a lot of flak from a man who now has a greater ability to damage it. This is despite the fact that the american people is generally very well disposed to Israel. Obama's mandate was not intended to be used for such a purpose, to harm jews, but there again neither was Hitlers.

Americans want jobs and financial security. Hopefully their president will work to achieve this, but his eye is firmly fixed not so much on the welfare of americans but on adding to the manifold threats and dangers to Israel's security caused by his first administration.

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

I had to repress a smile when reading that Turkey is putting Israelis on 'trial' in their absence for having killed the IHH terrorists on the Mavi Marmara. Of course the verdict is a foregone conclusion in the country which jails more journalists than any other country (around 100 at present) and has thousands of political prisoners languishing in prison. The sentence being asked by the prosecution is 18,000 years for each soldier who defended himself from the violent turks.

I'm sure that with pleading mitigation and time off for good behaviour, Erdogan's judges might be convinced to allow the imposition of a more lenient 6,000 year sentence. The only remaining question is how long before amputations, whippings and stonings are introduced into the Turkish penal system?Even before the latest turkish farce, there was a feeling that Turkey not only lost all sense of realism but was punching above its weight. To give him credit the turkish islamist PM Erdogan instigated the Gaza flotilla provocation when he felt the time was right. The Turkish economy had seemingly taken off and Turkey appeared to have foreign policy successes across the board. The islamist Erdogan's mantra was zero foreign policy problems other than with Israel. And for one short year it seemed to ring true.

It wasn't long however before the foreign policy goals unravelled with Armenia not seeing any fruits of its appeasment of Turkey. Its border is still blockaded by Turkey. Turkey also woke up to the fact that supporting Iran's regional and nuclear ambitions might clash with its own security goals.

Turkey now has problems with all its neighbours (apart from tiny Georgia) evoking the feeling in europe that the best place for irascible Turkey is not in the EU or in Nato (sighs of relief from EU nations that Turkey never managed to break into the EU club and now it never will).

And Turkey's economy is giving increasing cause for worry (or the opposite depending on your point of view). The economic boom has been predicated on real estate rises in value, 'hot' credit and consumption. There is little capital investment in Turkey and unemployment is booming.

All Turkey needs now is to go to war with Syria. Every time a Syrian shell lands over the border Erdogan huffs and puffs and we wonder if it will finally happen. Just how long will hot tempered Erdogan manage to resist taking his country into a disastrous war with Syria (and Hezbollah and Iran supported by Iraq and Russia). The disaster will of course not just be for Turkey but for a number of Israel's worst foes.

So apart from the above scenario worrying cooler minds in Turkey, there's always that horrible Kurdish problem, a problem of the kurdish birth rate that keeps gnawing away, and will continue to do so until one day Turks wake up some time around 2038 and find out that Kurds outnumber them.

Long before then Turkish soldiers will be dying in ever greater numbers, and the increasing repression against kurds in eastern Turkey will just hasten the progress of turkish collapse in the east.No wonder Turkey is beside itself with worry over the new kurdish autonomous areas in Syria's north east. If I was Erdogan i'd forget the Jews for the moment as there are just so many problems looming on the horizon. I would be really worried about the rise of the Kurds as, sad to say if you are an Ottomanist and islamist Turk, there doesn't seem to be any solution other than radically shrinking the borders of Turkey at the very least from Erzurum eastwards. Turkey is going to be forced to drink some of the poison it recommends Israel partake of. Unlike Turkey Israel has legitimate and somewhat long standing claims (admittedly not 18,000 years) to all the lands its people live on.I'm going to bed soon and will hopefully awaken to drink a lechayim to the american people's good sense in kicking Obama, the Jewish and American Peoples' worst enemy since Hitler (bar maybe a couple of madmen living in Iran) into the long grass. When I open my eyes in the morning the middle east and asia will hopefully be much safer (we mustn't forget how China has flexing its muscles in the South China Sea area since Obama's administration showed how spineless it is in the face of aggression by enemies of the West) .

Turkey will fail to achieve its long-term growth targets as the government is incapable of developing the necessary economic policy, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said.

“This government is incapable of developing the policy to lift Turkey into the top 10 economies in the world by 2023. On the contrary, the country may fall outside of the top 20 economies. Turkey was the 14th largest economy [in the world] in 1987. Now it is the 17th,” he said yesterday at a meeting organized by the Economy Journalists Association (EGD).

The government has set an ambitious target to become one of the largest 10 economies and reach $500 billion in exports volume by 2023, the centennial of the foundation of the republic.

However, Kılıçdaroğlu said the Turkish economy was off-track and was missing crucial targets in the government’s much-praised medium-term program. “The government makes a three-year program, however, all the targets are missed,” he said.

CHP Vice President Faik Öztrak, who also made a presentation at the event, said the government had revised down its own targets in the medium-term program regarding the main macroeconomic indicators including gross domestic product growth, and year-end consumer inflation for this year and the following two years. The government has revised its growth target for 2012 from 4 percent down to 3.2 percent and year-end inflation from 5.2 percent up to 7.4 percent.

Noting that domestic demand had contracted sharply, he said the target for demand growth in 2012 was 4.1 percent, but it had plunged to -0.1 percent. Turkey’s economic growth is predominantly based on external resources and debt, he said.

Another soft spot in the Turkish economy, according to Öztrak, is the household debt level, which has shot up 36-fold since 2002, while household financial assets merely increased threefold in the same period.

“There is no soft landing in the economy [as suggested by the government],” he said.
......the actual unemployment rate was higher than the official disclosure.

“Millions of people are jobless. The government claims to have decreased unemployment through tweaks in statistics. Someone who works for only 15 days is also counted as employed [for the full year],” he said.

Monday, 5 November 2012

The shameless manipulation of children by palestinian arabs goes on. Here children spend a long time haranguing soldiers hoping that one will strike out whilst being filmed. To their credit the soldiers acted impeccably. The constant teaching of hatred for jews and the attempt to defame them is why arabs will never be successful in Judea and Samaria. Arabs in Judea and Samaria will never have a viable state not because Israel failed to offer them their freedom, but because the arabs there don't want to build but only to provoke, to destroy, to maim and to kill jews. Kol Hakavod (well done) to those soldiers to allowed themselves to be abused so whilst keeping their good humour. They should not have to put up with this level of abuse though.
All the adults including those inciting the kids, especially those with the cameras who the encouragement for such provocations should have been arrested. Any foreigners found taking part in such incitement should be arrested and then deported.
Hopefully once the new government is elected they will begin to act against participants in these staged incidents and those who are responsible for them.

A video that has been uploaded to Youtube shows how Arabs in Judea and Samaria abuse their own children and manipulate unwitting Israeli soldiers in order to manufacture photographs that can be used for propaganda purposes.
The case in point is a situation that appears to have been masterfully directed by an unknown propagandist, starring a girl who was successfully used for the same purpose three months earlier.

In August, Arab propagandists produced photos of a soldier manhandling a crying Arab girl – an excellent illustration of the theme propagated by Israel's enemies, regarding Israel's allegedly evil military occupation of Judea and Samaria.
The girl was blond and light-skinned to boot – making the photos more touching for many westerners, as she appeared to be "one of their own."
The new video shows the girl in a similar situation, but this time it is plain to see what really goes on in these "photo ops."

The girl was obviously instructed to "get in the faces" of the soldiers, and spent a considerable amount of time cursing them, shouting herself hoarse and hitting them on occasion as well. At the same time, adults all around her were taping the occurrences, waiting for a soldier to lose his nerve.
The staging of scenes for Israel-baiting is such a common Arab tactic in the Palestinian Authority that the industry has come to be known as "Pallywood."
The most famous and successful Pallywood film ever made was that in which an Arab boy, Muhammad a-Durah, was placed in proximity to a Gaza firefight in 2000, and made to look as if he had been shot dead by IDF soldiers. Belated investigations showed that shots fired at a-Durah came from Arabs.

Sunday, 4 November 2012

It is hard to criticise Netanyahu has been unfortunate enouth to have had to work with the most anti-Israeli of US presidents ever, a president who has spent the last four years undermining Israel's security whether indirectly through 'regime change' of stable arab powers for extremist ones of the Muslim Brotherhood or through extreme pressure brought to bear on Israel over jews living in its ancient homelands.It is hard to know just how difficult things have been for Netanyahu, or what brought him to recognise 'rights' of arabs who call themselves Palestinians not in order to build themselves a state of their own, but in order to destroy Israel. Obama has however undoubtedly been up there with Iran on Netanyahu's list of worries these last four years. But Netanyahu was no spring chicken. He is serving a second term of office and he has sacrificed the jewish inhabitants of Judea and Samaria for no gain. Obama never let up for a minute in the years he has been in the White House, whether a manufactured crisis over housing permits in Jerusalem or pushing Israel to make ever greater concessions to arabs whose successes are guaged not by their increase in per capita income, but in how many jews they have killed.Elyakim Haetzni should however not just encourage people not to vote for likud. An alternative should be offered as power loves a vacuum. The worst possible outcome would be if people in Yesha just decide not to cast their ballot, handing their enemies a victory. Jews in Israel's ancient homelands of Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') must use their vote to elect those friendly to jewish settlement throughout the country. After all, with Lieberman having united with Netanyahu things are hopefully now set to improve.

Op-ed: Hundreds of thousands of settlers now second-class citizens due to Netanyahu's policies

Elyakim Haetzni Published: 11.02.12, 13:03 / Israel Opinion

The local news outlets are focusing on the "moderate" voters who will flee Likud due to the "Lieberman threat," but they are forgetting the party's rightist bloc, which has an old score to settle with Netanyahu.

Here is a partial list: "Two states for two people," the essence of the Left's doctrine; the freezing of settlement construction for 10 months and a willingness to extend the freeze in exchange for Palestinian recognition of a "Jewish state" and to permanently halt construction following negotiations; a partial construction freeze in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria's Jewish communities, which is still in effect; a willingness to launch negotiations on the Golan Heights; a cold and distant attitude towards settlers who have not been "legalized" by the Left – meaning those who live outside the "settlement blocs"; and, worst of all, the handing over of the settlement enterprise - with its 370,000 people and 250 communities - to Defense Minister Barak, who is using the Civil Administration to abuse the settlers and violate their property rights.
West Bank

Therefore, the prime minister is responsible for the fact that hundreds of thousands of his subjects have become second-class citizens. Netanyahu knew what Barak's approach vis-à-vis the settlers was, so by handing them over to the defense minister's absolute rule, he essentially threw them under the bus.

Construction in many West Bank communities is restricted because Barak is refusing to approve city construction plans, and some communities have become "illegal" only because of this refusal. "Beit HaShalom" in Hebron was purchased for a million dollars, but 16 families were evicted from the premises for no reason at all – as a court ruling issued years later determined.

The purchase of Beit HaMachpela was found to be legal, but its dwellers were still evicted because Barak refused to certify the purchase. And there is also Migron, Ulpana and Beit-El, the university in Ariel and the brutal evacuations of women and children, which are accompanied by the sadistic razing of homes and property.

Lieberman bears some of the responsibility for these injustices, and he also approved the "two states" formula. Therefore, merging Likud with his Yisrael Beiteinu party does not erase Netanyahu's negative track record.

Rightist voters will also consider Netanyahu's attitude towards the Levy Report, drafted by three prominent judges seeking to end the legal injustices against Jews in their own land. The prime minister continues to ignore the report, which determined that Israel is not an occupying force in Judea and Samaria.

Likud's refusal to accept this historic decree will not be forgiven and it will not be forgotten - not to mention the party's complete disregard for the report's practical recommendations, which call for the annulment of some of the draconian measures that limit Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The Levy Report alone may cost Likud-Beiteinu a few Knesset seats.

Saturday, 3 November 2012

I'm filled with sadness when I think of so much world heritage smashed to pieces by muslim iconoclasts in years gone by. Much of ancient Egyptian art was given the islamic treatment with faces bashed out so that only the bodies are left on many beautiful statues. That beautiful monument the "sphinx"might have been so much more beautiful were it not for islamic "improvements".So it is with little surprise that the barbaric islamists of Mali and Saudi Arabia are destroying ancient relics of islam itself. A religion that does not teach tolerance for the other, that has no possibility of updating its creed into an age of human rights and respect for other people's sensitivities and cultures will not respect its own. All that is needed is for a different islamic school such as the wahabites or salafists to come along and then previous works of even islamic art become dust.

The Saudis are bulldozing Islam's heritage. Why the silence from the Muslim world?

By Damian Thompson World Last updated: November 2nd, 2012

Imagine that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the traditional site of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – has been taken over by Cromwellian Puritans. The new owners of the shrine plan to send bulldozers in, replacing the old church with a monstrous building resembling a concrete spaceship. This is so pilgrims can pray without being distracted by “superstitious” icons. Also, the Old City will be buried under hotels that make Vegas look like Venice.

It wouldn’t happen, would it? Christians would fight to the death to preserve Jerusalem. So would Jews and Muslims. And, for once, they’d have the support of secular politicians and scholars, horrified by the prospect of an act of cultural vandalism unprecedented in modern times.

Unprecedented until now, that is. The long-cherished ambition of Saudi Arabia’s ruling Wahhabi sect to smash up the ancient buildings of Mecca and Medina is nearing fruition.

In Mecca, the house of one of Mohammed’s wives has been demolished to make space for public lavatories. His birthplace may disappear, too, as part of King Abdullah’s scheme to complement the skyscrapers and shopping malls with a Grand Mosque fashioned from the same materials as a multi-storey car park in Wolverhampton.

As for Islam’s second holiest place, the city of Medina, a recent article by Jerome Taylor in the Independent revealed a megalomaniac plan to pull down three 7th-century mosques. Taylor added: “Ten years ago, a mosque which belonged to the Prophet’s grandson was dynamited. Pictures of the demolition that were secretly taken and smuggled out of the kingdom showed the religious police celebrating.”

Only a small minority of the world’s billion Muslims are Wahhabis, despite the tens of billions of petrodollars spent by the Saudis propagating their creed. (Bosnia, for example, is now littered with Saudi-style mosques, replacing the graceful Ottoman architecture that Wahhabis detest.) Many pilgrims to Mecca are revolted by the marriage of Puritanism and greed they find there. Yet protests are scattered and muted. Why?

One answer is that the House of Saud, though widely hated, is also feared: its wealth and terrorist connections make it unlikely that, say, a Pakistani politician would speak openly about the desecration of the Hajj.

The West can hardly complain about such gutlessness: this year’s Hajj exhibition at the British Museum was creepily sanitised – no mention of bulldozers or the 2,000ft clock tower built right next to the Kaaba, the black cube-shaped building that is the centrepiece of Islamic devotions.

But what sticks in the craw is the hypocrisy of Muslims who throw a fit if Israeli archaeologists carry out non-intrusive work underneath the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, “Islam’s third holiest place”, as we’re constantly reminded. Such anger would be more convincing if the first and second holy sites weren’t being ploughed up by a police state. Likewise, are cartoons of Mohammed really more offensive than reducing the remains of his life to rubble?

As one Middle East expert put it to me: “Jews disturbing the Dome of the Rock fits into an anti-Western narrative, so Muslims can cope with that. The Saudi destruction of Mecca doesn’t fit into that narrative, and so there’s virtual silence.” Something worth bearing in mind, perhaps, when you wonder why the murder of Muslims by Muslims in Darfur or Syria provokes only limited outrage in the Islamic world.